Sunday, September 30, 2007

47- Perfect.Marya is describing a "Perfect Body" she capitalizes both Perfect and Body even though they are not at the beginning of the sentence. She seems a bit confused about what Perfect is but insists it is the only way that she will be happy.

57- Fear.Marya is talking about fear in her childhood. She was afraid of growing up yet she was afraid of staying in her constant state. I think that Marya chose "fear" because she wasn't sure of anything else in her life but her fears.

68-Independence.This is the thing that Marya has wanted since she can remember. She believes it will only help her understand herself and what she wants in life.

69-Thin.Knowing the nature of this memoir, this word is inevitably loaded. Marya again capitalizes Thin several times when it is in the middle of a sentence. Marya's life revovles around the idea of Thin.

69- Self-Destruction.Marya begins to self-destruct her life from the inside out. This is shown in her complusive behaviors of her eating disorder.

69-Savior.Usually a savior is something that helps us out of a life threating situtation but in Marya's case, she refers to anorexia as her savior. She says it is the only pure and constant thing in her life.

71- Gifted.This word is loaded because Marya believes that "gifted" is everything that she is not.

71- Underachiever.Marya's parents refer to her as an Underachiever, that she is not good enough, not strong enough for their expectations. Marya is heartbroken with mostly everything her parents say to her, though doesn't admit it.

71-Potential.Marya had potential. She had the potential to be normal and to be an achiever, though she never quite had all control on her own life.

86- Anoretic.Marya refers to the word anoretic in a loving fashion. She respects the "saints" who have the will to starve themselves willingly as if God had told them to do so.

Marya is becoming more hard-headed and stubborn as time goes on. Her illness is at an all-time high and so is her reckless behavior. Therapy is doing seemingly nothing for her. I believe that if she does get into Interlochen that her behavior will just worsen. Marya is completely out of control and i have lost any sympothy or compassion I ever had for her as a little girl. I have a hard time reading this book since it makes me furious.

Marya struggles growing up in Edina with the pressure of her mother, her grandmother, her peers, and her own thoughts. She along with her other classmates begin to complusively critisize their own bodies in the school bathrooms after lunch. They discuss the Pefrect Body. Marya tells about the social classes of Edina and how she is on the "wrong side of town" since she is not living in the victorian style homes of the Country Club. Marya keeps progressing through puberty and tells her mother she needs a bra. Her mother, as usual, ignores her. Marya becomes more and more desperate writing letters to her mother and hanging signs on her door. Her mother finally complies and brings her to Dayton's for an awkward shopping trip. Marya began to make more excuses about being sck so she could stay home from school. She would eat and eat then throw up and eat again. By the time she was eleven Marya was fully developed. Boys teased her about her puberty which made Marya even more uncomfortable. Marya continues her pattern of binge eating then throwing up. Marya gets invited some parties consiting of pizza, chips, movies and holding hands. At the party she confines herself in the bathroom after her meal. She turns the sink and fan on so that they won't her her puke. Marya's grades were slowly dropping and she decieded that she wants to become grown up now. Marya started wear dark makeup and promiscuous outfits to make herself look older. She begins to become afraid of her body and the sexual things it represents. Marya and her father become ever distant with each other and Marya still longs for her mother's approval. She begins skipping meals to "cleanse her sysytem". She wanted to be independant from everyone but still be able to sit on her mom's lap. Marya wants more and more to become invisble and slip into the crowd, faceless and nameless. She continued to drop her grades and was eventually dropped from the "Talents" Program at school. Marya begins sleeping with men she just has just met. She is thirteen when she starts taking drugs and having sex. Marya even tries heiroin. She stays up late doing excersives in her bedroom while thinking "I'm fat, I'm fat..". At fourteen, Marya is pregnant. The baby does not survive, Marya has a miscarriage while sitting at dinner one night. She begins to see her mother's therapist, though not through her own will and finally decides that she will move away to Art Boarding School, Interlochen.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

We first meet Marya Hornbacher in current times at a cafe with her friend Jane. Jane has just be dismissed from the hospital and begins to feel dizzy during lunch. Marya takes Jane to the hospital knowing what it is like to be a recovering anoretic and the body reacting to being fed after years of starvation.Marya tells us that she became bulimic at age nine and anorexic at age fifteen. She floated in and out of hospitals throughout ten years. Many doctor's reports had claimed her to be a lost cause. Marya's disorder was not a result of a certain anything, she can't point her finger and blame a single incident as that would give too much credit to one pin point in the whole realm of potential causes.Marya spent the early part of her childhood in California. Her mother was a actress and her father was a director. Marya always remembers her parents being odd about food. Her mother always picked at her food and her father was always saying he was on a diet, though ate more and more everyday. Even as a baby Marya had trouble with food. Her mother refused to breast feed her and Marya was allergic to cow's milk, soy milk and rice milk. She also had endless other allergies. Marya believes she was always self-concious of her body too. She did not like to touch or be touched by anyone. She had alwasy been mor athletic than graceful. Even as a young child Marya remembers trying very hard to get a reaction from her mother, some form of attention. Marya started obsessing about food, the number, size, order, and number of chews of her bites of food. She shows early signs of obsessive complusive disorder. Marya grew up in the theater because of her parents professions. She liked the feeling of "becoming someone else" when she acted. Marya's mother left the house often usually when she got into an argument with her husband. Marya becomes the thing that keeps her parents together, the 3rd leg of the triangle. Later Marya's father will admit to her that during those years Marya was the thing that kept him from leaving for good. In 1982 Marya and her family moved to Edina, Minnesota. Marya began school at Concord Elementary. In fourth grade she began to go through puberty. Marya was one of the first girls in her class to start puberty and was very self-concious about it. She thought she was very very fat. She began to stay home after school alone. After school she would immediately go to the fridge or cupboard and begin to eat. One day after her snack, she took a trip to the bathroom. She says that no one gave her the idea to throw up, she just did it. Shortly after, she became bulimic. From there it snowballed into a more and more severe problem.

This section was really difficult for me to read. The fact that a girl so young was having such horrible thoughts about herself made me want to cry. To tell you the truth, I almost set the book down after the first twenty pages. I predict that from here it will only get worse. Marya has told us in the begin that she is hospitalized 4 times through out the book so I'm sure this is only the begining of a very sad, long story.

Tuesday, September 18, 2007

5. "The chance to learn that gift was, more than anything, his legacy to me."

"My dad taught me that what you do counts. For me, that has to be about being kind, despite the odds."

6. "I work in the entertainment business, where kindness just never seems to be "in." It's not macho. It doesn't sell tickets. In the movies, the hero never kills the bad guy with kindness. But I believe Economics 101 is right. The value of a thing is determined by its scarcity. Which makes kindness spiritual gold."

With every new September there also comes a new school year and with every new school year comes new anxiety. Though anxiety is a common thing, the pressure is added as a high school athlete. I, myself, fall into this category since i play soccer as a fall sport. Ever since the first week of august, I've had soccer practices or games at least 6 times a week. With the recent starting of school this has boiled my days down to a core of school, soccer, school work, sleep. With such a tight schedule, naturally I've been under a lot of pressure. My anxiety for the first couple months of school is being able to keep up my school work and my training on and off the field. Though high school sport's seasons are typically short they have high intensity and since i play a fall sport it may intervene with some of the time i need for my beginning of the year school work. So, until the middle of October, my anxieties will be balancing my athletic and academic life.

As a new sophomore in the high school, I find myself referring to my map in between classes quite often. The hallways are usually packed wall to wall with students and there may not always someone willing to stop to give directions to a "squashmore". Knowing this, I've decided to make one of my goals this year to learn my way around the high school. I want to know every back alley and every secret corner. That way when there wall to wall congestion in a certain hallway i know a back route to get to class on time before the bell chimes. By the end of sophomore year, i hope to be the go-to girl for directions but until then I'm going to have to figure out a way to get to my classes the only ways i know how, through traffic.